Strength properties of concrete with fly ash and silica fume as cement replacing materials for pavement construction

Abstract

The overuse level of cement for civil industry has several undesirable social and ecological consequences. Substitution of cement with industrial wastes, called by-products, such as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, metakaoline, rice husk ash, etc. as the mineral admixtures offers various advantages such as technical, economical and environmental which are very important in the era of sustainability in construction industry. The paper presents the experimental investigations for assessing the mechanical properties of the concrete made using the Pozzolanic waste materials (supplementary cementitious materials) such as fly ash and silica fume as the cement replacing materials. These materials were used in eight trial mixes with varying amount of ordinary Portland cement. These SCMs were kept in equal proportions in all the eight trial mixes. The chemical admixture (High Range Water Reducing Admixture) was also added to improve the workability of concrete. The compressive strengths for 7, 28, 40 and 90 days curing were evaluated whereas the flexural and tensile strengths corresponding to 7, 28 and 40 days curing were evaluated. The study corroborates that the Pozzolanic materials used in the present investigation as partial replacement for cement can render the sustainable concrete which can be used in the rigid pavement construction.